Week 5 February 12, 2008 Class 5

This week the class did not meet in class. The instructor gave us a critical thinking assignment about technology in the classroom to do at home.Read the article titled Little Green Gadgets Plant Ideas in Peru (provided in class or it can be found via HWC library resources – Chicago Tribune Database, Little green gadgets plant ideas in Peru – January 6, 2008.

            Basically, I learned that although the computers introduce the children to computer technology and allowed them to surf the internet the greatest use of the computers seemed to be: taking pictures, making the classroom more fun and allowing the community to communicate with each other.  Although this is a good start it is not the modern day used of the computer.  Today computers are used for research, as a tool to work more quickly and as a way to crunch numbers very quickly in different ways to understand information gathered.  It also has its entertainment purposes like watching movies and listening to music and making digital graphics. Below I list more specific answers to the questions posed for the assignment.

 1.       The assignment was to Read the wiki related to the use of the laptops in Arahuay, Peru (go to the External Links for the wiki page) 2.       My Answers the question follow: 1)   What is the purpose of the program? The Huascaran Program promotes the application of Information and Communication Technologies to 3260 state schools in areas in Peru.  The laptop program is part of this program. There are two aspects of the Huascaran program: 1) provide guidance to teachers and principals on the teaching aspects of the application of ICT to their learning activities. And 2) Provide innovation in the classroom.2)   What are the benefits for the student? the teacher? the community?Benefits for the student: the laptops make the classroom more fun so that students want to come to school. Benefits for the teacher: The students take an active role in the learning experience by learning on their own, teaching other students and wanting to come to class. Teachers can also do research on the internet and learn different ways to make their classroom better.Benefits for the community: The community is more connected because the laptops offer them another way to communicate with each other. 3)   What are the disadvantages for the students? the teacher? the community?Disadvantages for the students: There is a sense in the school that the laptops are teaching the students and the teachers are assisting. This should be the exact opposite. The teachers should be teaching and the laptops should be a tool used to enhance the learning experience.Disadvantages for the teachers: The students can become distracted by the lap tops and so the teachers must try harder to make sure the students follow the lesson and learn what they need to know.Disadvantages for the community: Not everyone can use the laptops (just the students have them) and so not everyone in the community is learning how to used or can partake in this new form of communication is a comprehensive way.  4)   Can this program work in similar rural locations?Yes, the only obstacle would be the climate and/or the weather because an antenna is used and the laptops are not water resistant.  5)   Can this program work in the Chicago Public Schools?Yes, and in many ways it is being employed as more schools are being equipped with laptops.  The only difference is that students do not get to take their laptops home and I suspect in America we have more a sense that the computer is a tool and can not take the place of an actual teacher. 

The XO Laptop in the classroom subject continued.

It is good that the laptop computers can cause so much excitement in the town.  I think the XO computers do make learning fun and the class room experience more interesting and fun. The community getting over the learning curve for using and servicing the laptops is a great experience in itself. The up keep of computers is a part of being a computer user.

The most telling part of the article is this quote: “When I’m asked how we are measuring the benefits for the children of the OLPC Educational Project and what kind of parameters and evaluation methods we are using, it is hard for me to figure out what people really expect to hear.” It sounds like the author is really saying he wish he knew what to say so he can tell them what they want to hear.  There should be certain goals, parameters and methods to achieving those goals already written down.  Then it becomes less of a matter of figuring out what people want to hear and more of a mater of explaining to them what you wanted to achieve and how you have achieve or failed in your goals.

Another telling aspect of the article is the phrase the fact that behavior of the children has change for the better. “Right after the project started, we noticed that most of the children started coming to school tidier or better dressed, no one commenting on it.”Why is this? Is it because they are so preoccupied with their computers hey have no time to miss behave? Is it because they are in a more structure environment with set goals? Is it because they laptop has satisfied some aspect of their personality that was causing the misbehavior? I think what happen is the child is getting more attention and is in a situation where his bad behavior is less tolerated. I do not think computers are solution to bad behavior.

The learning through recording part of the article was one of the areas I saw the XO laptop actually enhancing the children’s learning.  The child can listen and record himself until his pronunciation is acceptable to him.

(Leticia, 3^rd & 4^th grades)

The Story of Leticia, the teacher, in the 3^rd and 4^th grades, who was reluctant to learn the laptop, shows that teachers have a learning curve to get over but all seem to embrace the experience eventually.  I think this will be generally true of all teachers. However, how long it takes teachers to embrace the work involve in getting over the learning curve must be considered when bringing new technology into the class room

Margarita , the teacher in the 5^th and 6^th grade, who was the fastest learn of the laptop shows how teachers used the laptop to find out information to make their school better. Margarita searched the internet on how other schools organized their classroom libraries books and used some of the ideas.

 In the : The Operationa Team in Arhuay Methodology & curricula adherence section, the Ministry of Education Methodology & curricular adherence for the teaching staff follows four laptop implementations principles: 1) Appropriate the laptops for teachers and students.. 2) Integrate the laptop into the curricula and use the laptops during class. 3) Explore the the laptop and develop multi-disciplinary projects and activities the teachers can use with the students. 4) Produce innovation work from the laptop by teachers and students based on the laptop knowledge and application use.Once again I think the emphasis is place too much on the use of the laptop.  If the laptop can be used to make the learning experience better then use it. Otherwise, to make a great effort to make the laptop central to the activity is not really a good use of education time and energy.  I think because the laptops were a gift and the people involved in bringing the laptops to the community are so invested in the laptops that they have almost mandated that the laptops play a major role in the teaching experience.

Week4 February 5, 2008 Class 4

1) To day we covered basically four things: 1) Article & Website about the $200 computers give to poor countries. We saw how google maps worked to find the remote village where the computers were handed out.2) Proposals for new technology I the class room we want to buy for our class using MS word and tables.3) Using Excel and gathering measurement from the class to see how they compared to the virtual man.

 

1) We read the article titled Little Green Gadgets Palnt ideas in Peru provided to us in class- January 6, 2008. After we discussed the usefulness and need of the computers. I will talk about my view of this and a related article in the Week 5 blog.

 

 

2) We went over our proposals. We should used the word <need> instead of <want>. Also, tables should be used to list the information on the technology cost and so on. More specifically: <<Item>> <<Cost per Item>> <<Rational>> <<Description>> <<Remarks>> <<Quantity>> <<Total Cost>> We should also provide a webpage if possible where the items will be purchased. Most companies have a educational part or section where items can be purchased in bulk at a discount and this should be used instead of the general public one. We should go to the educational link web pages and save them as MHT web archives.

  

3) The Vitruvian Man

 

Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man

 

 

 

 

 

Image taken from:

 

 http://leonardodavinci.stanford.edu/submissions/clabaugh/history/leonardo.html 

 

 

<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>> 

Cesariano’s Vitruviman

 

 

 

 

 

Image take from: http://thealchemicalegg.com/VitruviusN.html 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Vitruvian Man we considered in class was revised by Leonardo da Vinci around 1492. What is the Vitruvian man? The Vitruvian Man representation was done before by other theorist trying to represent the human from in some generalized scientific way related to nature. Leonardo was probably first introduced to the concept of the Vitruvian Man during his apprenticeship in Verroccio’s workshop where he studied architectural and technological design. http://leonardodavinci.stanford.edu/submissions/clabaugh/history/leonardo.html  (History, leonardo’s vitruvian man) Leonardo’s image is that of a nude male figure in two superimposed poses whose feet touch the circle and whose arms touch the square as show in the picture.  The image of the Vitruvius man is a result of Leonardo interest in art and science as he tried to related man to nature. Leonardo’s depiction of the Vitruvian is different from other earlier depiction in obvious ways. Mainly this obviously difference can be seen from the Vitruviam Man overlay of the circle and square around the perimeter of the two superimpose male figure in two poses. The other people who attempted to depict the male form just used the circle and so the appendages came out disproportionated. 

The concept of the Vitruvian was conceived about 1500 years before Leonardo was born. http://leonardodavinci.stanford.edu/submissions/clabaugh/history.html .

The following is a quote: An interesting statistic related to reconstruction of the Vitruvian Man: in the past two hundred years, anthropometry has shown that span (arm span) exceeds height in 59-78% of normal adult white men. Taken from: GD Scott, The extent of man from Vitruvius to Marfan. In Lancet 19-26,Dec,1992, p 1518 thru20 .http://leonardodavinci.stanford.edu/submissions/clabaugh/reconstruction.html This means that overtime the human form evolves and the human proportions are race and/or ethnic group specific. 

The name Vitruvius comes from an Roman architect that stated, in a third volume of architecture books, that the proportions of temples should be based on the proportions of man.  He tried to justify his argument by stating that the human form including torso, arms and legs fits into the perfect geometric form: the circle and the square.   http://thealchemicalegg.com/VitruviusN.html  (Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man) Vitruvius was expressing an idea that had its origins dating back to Pythagoras, a man who lived in a Greek colony in Southern Italy in the 6th century, BCE. Pythagroras believed that through reincarnations people purified themselves back to a divine source.

Their were other’s who took on this concept of Vitruvian Man and developed their own illustrations. One such illustrations of Vitruvian man was done by Cesariano in his Cosmo Vitruvius of 1521.  Cesariano’s  man had disproportioned features: arms obviously too long and legs obviously too short and hands obviously too big.(Refer too picture) This happened because he inscribed his outstretched figure in a circle.

 

 In class we wanted to see have close our classmates came to the Truvianman.  We also wanted to learn how to used Excel to gather and work with information.

<<Height>><<Length of Arm (Stretched out)>> <<Hand>> <<Arms>> were used. I broke man down by classmates, girls and then boys.

 

<<Men>> <<In Inches>>

Name	Arms	Height	Hand	Shoulders	Elbow-Hand
Armondo	69	68	7.0	16	18
Izzy	72	72	7.5	17	19
Scott	73	71	8.0	20	19.5
Sergio	72	72	7.5	20	18.5
Stan	70	67	8.0	19	18.5

  

<<Women>> <<In Inches>>

Name	Arms	Height	Hand	Shoulders	Elbow-Hand
Caby	69	67	7.5	17	19
Cynthia	69	69	7.5	21	19
Glenda	62	64	7.0	16	17
Jessica	64	65	7.0	18	17
Keely	61	66	6.5	15	17
Sharon	71	69	7.0	16	19

 

 

 

Is the vitruvian Man a true proportion representation of everyone or is the Vitruvian Man a false representation.  The values obtained from the data and the spreadsheet will support the answer that it is a false representation.

So, it would seem that Leonardo got it wrong. Based on my measurements of my classmates I find that Vitruvian does not represent the universal set of proportions for the human body. My classmates do not fit the rules governed by Vitruvian man. In fact, it seems when broken down by male and female that the females have proportions more closely correlated to the Vitruvian man in some areas and the Males have proportions more close correlated to the Vitruvian man in other areas. If you combine the states of both genders then you are closer to the Vitruvian man’s measure but you are still noticeably off.   My class room is representative of basically three races: Black, Latino and White. My class room has both male and females. So, I consider two genders to Leonardo’s one gender. Although I find no, specific authority saying Leonardo only considered males in developing his Vitruvian form I thing the fact that Vitruvian is a male and I find no reference to females a telling aspect. Because I consider two genders I am already opposed to Leonard. However, as I stated earlier by considering the measurement of both genders I was able to come closer to the proportions, over all, of the Vitruvian man.

 

 

 

This is my Chart Data Interpretation of my Vitruvian to classmates Analysis

 Names of Columns

I charted my data in excel. The Column names were: C = Arms, D = Height, E = Hand, F =Shoulders, G=Elbow-Hand.  The Columns C=Arms and D=Height called: These should be compared to each other. They should come out equal according to the rules of Vitruvian Man. In neither case of the Men, Women nor Men-Women did I see Arms-Length Height equal the true Height. The men’s arms-length height is slightly longer than the men’s true height. This does not follow the Vitruvian rule that arms-length is equal to a man’s height. The Women Arms-Length Height is slightly shorter than their true height.  This does not follow the Vitruvian rule that they be equal. Thus, in the case of Men-Women when you combine the genders (where in men Arms-Length Height is longer and in women Arms-Length Height is shorter) you do come very close to the Vitruvian man ratio which says Arms-length Height = true Height. Columns E=Hand, F=Shoulders, G=Elbow-Hand should compare the class mate’s measurements to the Vitruvian man.

 

 

In all cases we see the ratios of the classmates are greater than the Vitruvian man rules suggest it should be. For example we see my classmates: The rule E (Hand) = The length of the hand is more than one-tenth of a man’s height. That my classmates true height is more than the vitruvian man rule suggest it should be. So, my classmate’s true height is greater than the vitruvian length of the hand is one-tenth a man’s height ratio.

 

 

Week3 January 29, 2008 Class 3

Today’s class was supposed to cover: 1) Listening to and Reading Handouts about the usefulness of computers in the classroom and teaching. First Article: Pros about how computers help students learn in the classroom and are good in general. It stated computers make students more interested in learning. Also it said or implied students learn better when they use a computer.  Pros vs. Cons: good worker – critical thinker, make more interesting –Structured learning, Communication skills – contact with people or computers.  My view is that computers are good for: connecting to people or places over distances, researching and running mission critical software or productivity software related to job. Second Article: 1) Factory School Method, 2) Computer is effective Learning Machine and 3) Role of teacher (Help students keep focus). I did not like this article. It made it sound like the computer is teaching and the teacher is assisting the computer.  I think the computer is a tool that can do nothing unless you have programmed it to do that and computers do not respond to every question asked in various and/or odd ways.  Factory school Model- Lecturing , big class room, everyone learning the same thing the same way, skill you need for the job which were 20% factory and farm.  New Model of School – sounds like it is a whole new way of doing things now that the computer is introduce but I think people would have done a revise of the factory model with or without the computer and not because of it. Third Article was about “Technology alone has not Improved Education”.  I agreed with this article.   The United States has changed from a factory economy to a service economy and this is the main reason the factory model was revised.  The questions we are asking as a result of today’s articles are: Is computer technology 1) necessary? Yes because other countries have it and our kids in the USA must know how to use it also. 2) in schools?  Yes computers should be in all school but they should have a structure or purposeful use and not just for fun. 3) For all ages? Yes computer are for ages 4 and up.  4) to be better workers? Yes computers should be used to make people better workers because computers are a tool but they should also be used to give people better information to make decision and to connect people.

Week2, January 22, 2008 Class 2

Today’s class first task was to Edit Week 1 Blog and Add a Bio.

Bio Information should include:

1)Why are you taking this course

2)Do you consider yourself computer literate

The next task for today is to look inside a Computer ( computer Anatomy) . We looked Inside Computer – Anatomy and identified the hardware we saw.

The next assignment is a Proposal : Go to Website to Buy Computer – What software you need for a particular task. The proposal needs to include: 1) Rationale 2) What you need 3) The cost.

Also in today’s Class we talked about the history of the computer and Internet. We can find the history on the computer on-line. We also discussed what is a computer and other aspects of using software like licensing. Last part of class we worked on our proposals.

Week 1, January 15, 2008 Introduction Syllabus Blackboard

Week 2,  January 22, My Bio ( addition )

Location: City of Chicago

Goals: Become a teacher at the College and High School level In Auto-CAD

Education: College Computer Sci Degree, Plumbing and Fire Protection Certificate among others

Computer literarcy: I have used a computer for the last 20ty years to program, write papers and research. Also I have used many of the hardware and Software and peripheral associated with a computer.

Class Notes:

Introduction:

Today we talked about how to use Black Board. (ccc.blackboard.com). It was stated that the last (final) assignment will be a blog or PDF. Thee wrong books are in the bookstore for this class.

Notes:

The External Links  to use and sign up for wordpress blog  is wordpress.com . A Blog should contain what we did in class and we send link to teacher through (blog or email). All work on the blog should be done formally.

The Structure of  Email is as follows:

<subject>

 <address the person’s name>

 <structure the email>

Class can use google search engine or anyone we like, to find help using blogs. Help using  goggle can be found by the following:  google search help.  Box.net is a place to store digital files  or class can bring their own thumb drive. My word press location is < sclay18.wordpress.com>.